Garment processing apparatuses (or Laundry treatment apparatuses) are home appliances capable of washing and/or drying laundry, and include a washing machine, a drying machine, and a combined drying and washing machine.
A laundry treatment apparatus capable of drying laundry is adapted to supply high temperature air (hot air), and may be divided into an exhaust type laundry treatment apparatus and a circulation type (condensation type) laundry treatment apparatus based on an air flow method.
A circulation type laundry treatment apparatus, which circulates interior air of a laundry accommodation unit in which laundry is stored, is configured to implement removal of moisture (dehumidification) of air discharged from the laundry accommodation unit and to heat and resupply the air into the laundry accommodation unit.
An exhaust type laundry treatment apparatus is configured to supply heated air into a laundry accommodation unit and to exhaust air discharged from the laundry accommodation unit to the outside of the laundry treatment apparatus (rather than resupplying the air into the laundry accommodation unit).
Meanwhile, a hot air supply unit used in a conventional laundry treatment apparatus includes a blower configured to discharge air from a laundry accommodation unit and a heat exchanger configured to heat air moved by the blower.
That is, in the conventional laundry treatment apparatus, in terms of air flow direction, the blower is located in front of the heat exchanger, such that air discharged from the laundry accommodation unit passes through the blower and the heat exchanger in sequence, and thereafter is resupplied into the laundry accommodation unit.
However, the above-described conventional laundry treatment apparatus, in which the blower is located in front of the heat exchanger, has a disadvantage in that air discharged from the laundry accommodation unit passes through only a portion of the heat exchanger. Due to this disadvantage (i.e. low heat exchange efficiency), the conventional laundry treatment apparatus problematically needs to supply unnecessarily excessive amount of energy to the heat exchanger.
In addition, the conventional laundry treatment apparatus is adapted to determine dryness of laundry using the temperature of air discharged from the laundry accommodation unit (i.e. the temperature of air prior to passing through the heat exchanger) and the temperature of air to be supplied into the laundry accommodation unit after passing through the heat exchanger.
The above-described dryness determination method, however, has difficulty in accurately determining dryness of laundry because a temperature sensor cannot accurately measure the temperature of air discharged from the laundry accommodation unit if impurities (e.g., lint) contained in the air discharged from the laundry accommodation unit are accumulated on the temperature sensor.